DESPITE MAKING IT as far as the knockout stages at Euro 2016 last summer, Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill is adamant that his team continue to improve.
O’Neill’s side ended a 30-year absence from major international tournaments by reaching the competition in France, and they’re currently well placed to feature at next year’s World Cup in Russia thanks to an encouraging qualifying campaign so far.
While Germany lead Group C with maximum points from their five games, Northern Ireland are five points adrift in second place, two points ahead of Czech Republic. They resume their campaign away to Azerbaijan in Baku tomorrow evening.
In an interview with The Guardian which was published today, O’Neill praised his side for punching above their weight.
He also highlighted their limited resources when it comes to playing personnel by using a witty reference to Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill, who won 64 Northern Ireland caps between 1971 and ’84.
“We are ranked 28th in the world, two behind the Republic of Ireland. Martin O’Neill named a 35-man squad the other week. If I named a 35-man squad, Martin would still be in it. A big remit of our U17 and U19 coaching appointments was recruitment. We must find more players,” said Michael O’Neill.
He added: “But the players that we are finding are going to have to grow with us. We brought a young lad into training last week from Rochdale. We are hopeful that he will get a chance to play at a higher level but he is going to have to grow with us.
“We will never get a Premier League player sticking his hand up to come to us. We are still playing above ourselves, I think, when you see the make-up of the squad and where we have had to go to, to bring players in.
“But we still have that respect from other teams. Opposition teams know they will have to play extremely well to beat us.”
